Attribution

Question 1

Why are causal attributions made

Answer 1

To explain a phenomenon, often incorrectly

Question 2

Self-serving attributional bias

Answer 2

Success due to personal characteristics, failures due to situational

Question 3

What are 3 conditions explanatory style is based on

Answer 3

• internal vs external
• Stable vs unstable
• global vs specific

Question 4

Factors of low self-esteem

Answer 4

External, unstable, specific conditions

Question 5

Factors of high self esteem

Answer 5

Internal, stable, global conditions

Question 6

What is the drawback of too much optimism?

Answer 6

Not learning from mistakes

Question 7

What is the consequence of too much pessimism?

Answer 7

depression

Question 8

Dispositional attributions

Answer 8

Association of someone’s actions to their personality

Question 9

Situational attributions

Answer 9

Association of someone’s actions to situational/external factors

Question 10

Correspondence bias

Answer 10

Tendency to ignore powerful proof that someone’s behaviour was situationally caused

Question 11

Fundamental attribution error

Answer 11

General tendency to attribute others behaviours to disposition

Question 12

How does knowledge of actor influence FAE?

Answer 12

Better you know someone, more you can tell when they act out of character and relate it to situation

Question 13

Perpetual salience as actor

Answer 13

Information captures attention from situation, influences how we act

Question 14

Perceptual salience as observer

Answer 14

Salient information is actor and their disposition

Question 15

2 factor theory of emotion

Answer 15

Physiological arousal and interpretation of arousal/situation

Question 16

Social perceptions

Answer 16

Processes by which people come to understand one another.

Question 17

Mind perception

Answer 17

Attributing human-like mental states to other objects (animate/inanimate)

Question 18

Non-verbal behaviour

Answer 18

Reveals feelings through facial expressions, body language, vocal cues

Question 19

Personal attributions

Answer 19

Attribution to internal characteristics (i.e. ability, mood)

Question 20

Situational attribution

Answer 20

Attribution of factors external to actor

Question 21

Covariation principle

Answer 21

Attributing behaviour to factors present when behaviour occurs and absent when not occurring

Question 22

Counterfactual thinking

Answer 22

Imagine alternative outcomes/events that could have happened but didn’t

Question 23

Impression formation

Answer 23

Integrating information about person to form coherent impression

Question 24

Information integration theory

Answer 24

Impression based on perceiver dispositions + weighted average of target’s traits

Question 25

Priming

Answer 25

Recently used/perceived concepts come to mind more easily -> influence interpretation of new information

Question 26

Central trait

Answer 26

Traits that exert powerful influence on overall impressions

Question 27

Primacy effect

Answer 27

Words/topics given first are better remembered

Question 28

Belief preservation

Answer 28

Tendency to maintain beliefs, even after they’ve been discredited

Question 29

Self-fulfilling prophecy

Answer 29

Expectations of self/others will lead to expected behaviours/outcomes

Question 30

Availability heuristic

Answer 30

Estimate likelihood of event based on how easily examples of it come to mind

Question 31

Base-rate fallacy

Answer 31

Relative insensitive to consensus information presented in form of numerical base rates